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The Prisoner was an audio play in the Kaldor City series. Written by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, it featured an interrogation between Iago and Landerchild, whereby Iago attempted to convince his interrogator that they were both figments of something else's imagination.

Contents

When Kaston Iago is discovered wandering around the grounds of Landerchild's family estate, it looks like a simple case of political espionage. But is everything quite what it seems — and who is really in control of the situation?

Set in the Kaldor City universe, "The Prisoner" explores the themes and ideas set forth in earlier CDs to explore the true relationship of Iago to his fellow citizens.

This story was released as part of an MJTV Productions CD, The Actor Speaks: Paul Darrow, which featured an interview and several short stories unrelated to the Kaldor City series.

The title points the audience to the writers' love of the ATV series The Prisoner, and whilst it also suggests (like that TV series) the main theme of the Kaldor City series may be the nature of reality and fiction, it also suggests (again, like the TV series) definite answers may not be forthcoming. Notably, Kaston Iago occupies a similar narrative space as Number 6 from The Prisoner as both characters are thought to have originated from another fictional world. In The Prisoner, Number 6 is thought to be John Drake from Danger Man, a character also played by Patrick McGoohan. In Kaldor City, Kaston Iago is thought to be Kerr Avon from Blake's 7.

At the time this story was written the Abu Ghraib interrogations where being covered by real world news. Writer Alan Stevens used this as a source inspiration. Stevens also cites the television story Image of the Fendahl, which featured a discussion about how we all know the world is round and how in the old days they believed it was flat and so they acted as if it was.[1]

At the conclusion of the story, both characters are seemingly aware they are part of a fiction. This idea also features in the audio story Metafiction.

The play opens and closes with an abbreviated version of the theme music from The Logic of Empire, a fan produced Blake's 7 audio co-written by Alan Stevens. A longer version of this music was also heard at the end of the audio story Checkmate.